Gah!

Stayed up too late last night and didn't hear my alarm at all. Woke up at 8:20. Discovered there's no train to Dublin between 8:32 and 9:34. And when it get's to Dublin, there's a 15 min wait for a DART. Didn't get to work till 10:45.

Must not do that too often!

Someone deserves a slap

Mi sister turned up last night with the laptop she bought from a friend (Sony Vaio - fairly old model, but definitely a bargain for €100). She said that it was giving some trouble and would randomly shut down if she went online for a while, and doing a few other quirky things.

As soon as we powered it up, it started wanting to go online, which made me even more suspicious than I already was.

I checked for a virus checker. There was one. When was it last run? Sometime in 2002! When was it last updated? Never! Not good.

Installed a new virus checker and reboot. Reports three different vituses/trojans/worms attempting to run before bootup even finished. Run virus checker. Finds five different viruses infecting 24 files. All heal successfully.

Install AdAware and get rid of a few more things.

Install wireless LAN card and connect to internet. Run Windows update to download and install 54 patches and security updates.

Install Firefox and recommend avoiding insecure built-in browser.

Machine seems much happier now.